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MY LIFE AS A FAKE is a fantastical gothic tale, in part inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, about a hoax poet who mysteriously materialises and then pursues, taunts, haunts and otherwise destroys his maker. Two-time Booker prize winning author Peter Carey uses the Ern Malley hoax as a springboard, but the leap he takes is into the realms of richly imagined fiction. Sara, an English poetry editor on holiday in Kuala Lumpur, stumbles upon an Australian, Christopher Chubb, reading Rilke in a bicycle shop. The man shows her a scrap of poetry the like of which she's never seen. She becomes determined to get her hands on the poetry, to publish in (and revive) her ailing poetry journal. Chubb insists that Sara hear his story first. His tale is told over many sittings, and is the central story of MY LIFE AS A FAKE. As a conservative young poet in Melbourne in the 1950s, Chubb decided to teach the country a lesson about pretension and authenticity. Choosing as his target the most avant-garde of the literary magazines, he submitted for publication the entire oeuvre of one Bob McCorkle, a working-class poet of raw power and sexual frankness, conveniently dead at twenty-four and entirely the product of Chubb's imagination. Not only did the magazine fall for the hoax, but its editor was prosecuted for publishing obscenity. At the trial someone uncannily resembling the man in the faked photograph of the invented McCorkle leapt to his feet. At that moment the horrified Chubb was confronted by the malevolent being he had himself manufactured. Peter Carey wickedly and ruefully explores how the phantom poet taunts, haunts and otherwise destroys his maker, pursuing Chubb from Melbourne to the seedy, sweaty, tropical chaos of Kuala Lumpur. An unforgettable follow-up to the spectacularly successful TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, MY LIFE AS A FAKE has all the Carey trademarks and more: an irresistible narrator, a tragi-comic anti-hero, a world that is so familiar yet utterly strange and disorienting, and a story that keeps you reading way past your bedtime. MY LIFE AS A FAKE is a manic, endearing and penetrating ode to fakery at its most truthful and truth at its most fake, a novel that penetrates to the heart of the alchemy of literature itself.

Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.

He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and
then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there
between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before
Prince Charles arrived.

In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash
University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he
began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce,
Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was
nineteen.

For the next thirteen years he wrote
fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in
Melbourne, London and Sydney.

After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History
— a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made
him an overnight success.

From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in
1981 he established a small business where his generous partner
required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and
1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this
period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda.
Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda
won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax
Inspector.

In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He
taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at
Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he
wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History
of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.

In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in
Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake,
Theft, and His Illegal Self.

He is at work on a new novel.

Prizes:

1979 Miles Franklin Award (Australia) War Crimes
1980 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award War Crimes
1981 Miles Franklin Award (Australia) Bliss
1982 National Book Council Award (Australia) Bliss
1982 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award Bliss
1985 Australian Film Institute (Best Adapted Screenplay) Bliss
1985 Australian Film Institute (Best Film) Bliss
1985 Book Council Award (Australia) Illywhacker
1985 Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) Illywhacker
1985 The Age Book of the Year Award Illywhacker
1986 Ditmar Award for Best Australian Science Fiction Novel Illywhacker
1986 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction Illywhacker
1986 Victorian Premier's Literary Award (Australia) Illywhacker
1986 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (shortlist) Illywhacker
1988 Book Council Award (Australia) Oscar and Lucinda
1988 Booker Prize for Fiction Oscar and Lucinda
1989 Miles Franklin Award (Australia) Oscar and Lucinda
1994 The Age Book of the Year Award The Unusual Life of Tristran Smith
1997 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) (shortlist) Jack
Maggs
1997 The Age Book of the Year Award Jack Maggs
1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) Jack Maggs
1998 Miles Franklin Award (Australia) Jack Maggs
2001 Booker Prize for Fiction True History of the Kelly Gang
2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) True
History of the Kelly Gang
2001 Miles Franklin Award (Australia) (shortlist) True History of the
Kelly Gang
2001 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction True History of the Kelly Gang
2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific
Region, Best Book) (shortlist) Theft: A Love Story